


Post Break-Up

by truth_renowned



Series: K-I-S-S-I-N-G [7]
Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-23 04:59:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10712685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/truth_renowned/pseuds/truth_renowned
Summary: "Post Break Up Kiss - The kiss that catches both of you off guard, but says I miss you, I’m sorry and please love me again all at once without any words being spoken." (From @fanficspromptsandfun‘s Types of Kisses Prompts)





	Post Break-Up

**Author's Note:**

> fanficspromptsandfun's Types of Kisses Prompts post can be found at http://fanficspromptsandfun.tumblr.com/post/153391610561/types-of-kisses-prompts

“She’s here, Chief!”

The three words Daniel had been waiting to hear for 48 hours. The longest 48 hours of his life.

His last words to Peggy were ‘Don't you dare go without backup. That's an order.’ And she'd done exactly what he warned her not to do. He spent those 48 hours vacillating between anger and fear: angry with her for taking off on her own, fearing that he wouldn't see her again alive.

Daniel saw one of his newest agents running toward him, the one who had said the three words. 

“Vanroy, where is she?”

The baby-faced, dark-haired agent pointed toward an ambulance. “She’s a little beat up.”

“Where’s O’Dell?”

“Right here, Chief,” said an equally baby-faced agent, but with a shock of slicked-back red hair, running up beside them.

 _When did we start recruiting right out of grade school_ , Daniel thought fleetingly.

“Is the scene secured?” Daniel asked.

“Yes, sir.”

The three men moved quickly toward the ambulance, walking around the side to the back where Daniel saw Peggy. Her hair was wind blown -- or most likely punch-blown, given the bruises on her face -- and her blouse was soiled and torn at one shoulder. Her knees were scraped up, dried blood mottling her light skin, and a large bruise bloomed on her forearm. 

Daniel didn’t care what she looked like. She was alive. He couldn’t stop the sigh of relief from escaping his lips.

“Are you okay?” Daniel said, resisting the urge to reach out and touch her.

“I’m fine,” she said, her voice strong, though her tired eyes betrayed her. “Not a scratch on me. Well, maybe one or two. Certainly not enough to be poked and prodded.” She gave the paramedic an insincere smile. “No offense.”

Daniel shook his head. Beat up but still defiant.

“Check her out anyway,” Daniel said to the paramedic, and he raised a finger when Peggy started to protest. “That’s an order, Agent Carter. Try following this one, okay?”

The words were out of his mouth before he had a chance to think. He’d pay for that later, he knew, but it had to be said. The entire reason they were at this scene, her sitting on the back of an ambulance, bruised and bloodied, was because she disobeyed an order from her supervisor.

Daniel heard Vanroy and O’Dell snicker, and he shot them a look that silenced them immediately.

“Both of you, canvas every inch. Building, parking lot, everything.”

“Carter said they just dumped her here and took off,” Vanroy said, giving a confused glance at O’Dell, who returned the same look. “What are we supposed to be looking for, Chief?”

“What you look for at any crime scene: Evidence.”

“You won’t find any,” Peggy said, her voice tight. 

Daniel’s gaze never left Vanroy. “Look anyway.”

Vanroy and O’Dell looked at each other, then walked off toward the building.

As soon as the agents were out of earshot, Daniel said, “Peggy, what happened?”

“I was interrogated but I gave them nothing. Apparently they got what they wanted anyway because here I am. I will have my full report to you in the morning, Chief Sousa.”

She bit her lip, obviously trying to tamp down her ire, an ire he was quite familiar with since becoming her supervisor after her temporary transfer to the Los Angeles office. She may have been able to run rampant in New York with Jack basically oblivious to her actions, but that didn’t fly in his office. He knew her every trick. Professionally and personally. The personal tricks he liked. A lot. The professional ones, especially this one, had a habit of getting under his skin, irritating him to the point of anger.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he bit out. “I told you not to go without backup--”

“If you don't mind, Chief, I would like to go home and change. I will go back to the office and start on my report immediately after that.”

“Peggy…”

She jumped down from the back of the ambulance and walked away.

“Peggy, they need to check you out.”

She stopped and turned toward him. “Are you going to order me to stay?”

She didn’t give him a chance to respond, turning her back to him and walking until she got to his car. He was taken aback for a second before he realized that ‘home’ was the one they shared. He was her ride. 

He sighed heavily and followed her.

\------

The drive home was eerily silent. He was waiting for her to say she was sorry. He was waiting for her to tell him he was right, that she should have had backup. He waited all the way home and the walk into the house, door slamming behind them, until she finally spoke.

“How could you?” she spit out.

He felt like she’d slapped him across the face. “How could I what?”

“How could you embarrass me in front of the other agents?”

“What are you talking about?”

“‘Try following this order, Agent’,” she responded, her tone mocking and angry. 

“I would have said that to any of my agents who disobeyed a direct order.”

“I'm not just any agent,” she snapped.

“Yes, you are, Peggy. You are an agent in the Los Angeles SSR office. The office that I run. I have to think that way. I can't give any preferential treatment to you just because we’re…” He paused, searching for the right words. Going steady? Seeing each other?

“Sleeping together?” she offered.

His eyes narrowed. “I was going to say dating, but if you want to go there, fine. Yes, we’re having sex.” He paused for a second, seeing her flinch, but continued. “That doesn't matter.” 

“That doesn't matter,” she said bitterly. “I didn't realize how much I meant to you.”

“Damnit, Peggy! You know that's not what I meant! At work, I am your supervisor, just as I'm Rose’s supervisor, and Vanroy’s and O’Dell’s. And just like any of them, you have to follow orders. If you can't do that, then…”

“Then perhaps this is not going to work,” she finished for him.

“You were the one who requested the transfer here,” he reminded her, his sarcasm unmistakable.

“I wasn’t talking about just our professional arrangement.”

And there it was. He’d wondered when it was going to happen. She had started to pull away a few weeks ago, and that last day before she disappeared, they were nearly at each other’s throats. He assumed it was the case. Maybe it was. His gut said it wasn't.

He looked at her, _really_ looked at her. Her arms were crossed over her chest, adding a physical cue to that wall she was shoring up inside. He’d spent so long trying to break down that wall. He thought he’d succeeded. Obviously not. Maybe it wasn’t possible.

He knew better than to push her on this. She was angry. No, furious. More furious than he'd ever seen her. Pushing her now would only push her away. That didn’t mean his heart wasn’t breaking apart in his chest. That also didn’t mean he wouldn’t fight for her after they both had a chance to cool down.

“If that’s what you want, Peggy.” He tried to keep the emotion out of his tone but didn’t succeed.

“I don’t know what I want,” she said, deflated. “I just know I can't do this right now. I just… I need to think. I need some time.”

He nodded but didn’t respond as he watched her walk into the bedroom. He didn’t follow; he knew what was going to happen. Sure enough, within five minutes, she walked back into the living room with a suitcase.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said weakly. “I can go--”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Daniel. This is your home.”

 _I thought it was_ our _home_ , he almost said aloud.

“I’ll see you…” Her voice faded off as she opened the front door, stepped through the doorway and closed the door softly behind her.

And that was it. She was gone. For good? 

“God, I hope not,” he whispered.

It was going to be a long night.

\--------

He knew sleep was not an option, so he set up shop in the second bedroom he used as an office. There was a stack of reports to review. His mind and heart weren't in it, but he made himself a pot of coffee and dug in.

How had they gotten here? He thought everything was going great. They’d been together for a few months, Peggy had moved in, and they even had talked about looking for a bigger house. And then this case happened. A case she was the lead agent on. A case that almost went south because of her impetuousness, her automatic response to act first and think it through later.

Working with her always had been a challenge. In New York, she did her own thing, and he respected her for it. In Los Angeles, she tried to do her own thing, and he still respected her for it, but once he had ‘chief’ in front of his name, the game changed. Add in a romantic relationship and the game became something else entirely. He’d noticed the tension at home but figured it was work-related. In a way, it was. Peggy wanted to go off on her own, follow her own leads, and Daniel continually pulled her back in. He had to. It was his job.

She didn't understand that his decisions no longer were his own. He had to think like a chief, and that seemed to infuriate her. It infuriated him that she couldn’t see he wasn’t just responsible for himself anymore. He was responsible for an entire office full of people, people who knew there was something between the chief and the lady agent, but they weren't completely sure what and were afraid to ask. Daniel didn’t give them a chance to ponder their relationship. He treated Peggy as equally as he could. He had to set an example.

He’d made it a point to show her that they were equals in everything else in their lives. But work… they weren’t equals. He thought she had accepted that. He must have thought wrong.

He didn’t want to lose her, but if there was one thing he knew about Peggy Carter, it was she would not do anything she did not want to do. If, in her mind, they would not work as a couple, then they wouldn’t. Nothing he could say or do would change that, even if they both knew that they were right for each other. There was no one in the world better for him than Peggy, and he was the best man for her. And that, right there, was the one thing about this entire ordeal that saddened him beyond belief.

After four hours of pretending to read and edit reports, he heard the click of the deadbolt. Instinctively, his hand went into the desk drawer, retrieving his gun. 

He moved as silently as possible out of the office and into the hallway. He lowered his gun as he saw who it was.

“Peg?”

She gave him a sad smile as she placed her suitcase on the floor by the door. “I would understand if you want to shoot.”

He moved into the living room, placing his gun on the coffee table.

“I’m sorry, Daniel. I… I just…” Her expression softened, and she took a step toward him. The wall was cracking ever so slightly. At least he hoped it was.

“Peg, you don’t need to apologize for needing time to think. I needed it, too.”

“You did?”

He nodded. “Look, I'm sorry. Making that order comment in front of the other agents was wrong. It was unprofessional but I was just so worried about you, and then they said they'd found you and…”

“Daniel…” 

“No, let me finish,” he said. “You may not be as happy with me once you hear what I have to say.”

He motioned toward the couch, and she nodded, taking a seat with her back against one of the arms. He sat a few feet away from her, within arm’s length but still enough to put a distance between them. There was a distance emotionally between them right now; why not add a physical one? He shook off the negative thought.

“I gave you lead on this case,” he started, his tone as even as he could get it. “I did it because it was the right decision. You are the strongest agent in this office, and this was one of the biggest cases we’ve had since… well, the Isodyne case.” He paused, taking a deep breath and letting it out. “I gave you Vanroy and O’Dell as part of your team. They’re new but you know as well as I do that they show promise. I figured they could learn a lot from you. I assumed you would function as a team.”

“We did,” she replied. “They helped me follow some leads--”

“But not that last one, did they?”

She huffed out a sigh. “There wasn’t time--”

“We talked about this, Peggy. You can’t go off on your own.”

He saw the fire in her eyes and could almost hear the wall shoring itself back up, more impenetrable than before.

“It was my case,” she pushed out in a tense voice.

“It was _our_ case, the SSR’s case. And I trusted you, I trusted that you would conduct yourself as a senior agent, not a vigilante.”

“Vigilante?! I was following a lead!”

“By yourself and without backup! You know better!”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You say you trust me. I wonder if that’s really true.”

“There is no one I trust more,” he responded, unable to hide his shock from her words. “Why would you say that?”

“Because you always seem to question my instincts, especially lately.”

“No, I _never_ question your instincts. I know your instincts are good, but you don’t always think about the consequences of your actions. And as a chief, I have to think about that. I have to think about how your actions affect not just yourself, but the entire office.”

“I know that, but--”

“But nothing, Peggy. This isn't New York. We're not just colleagues or partners here. I have to think about all of my agents’ safety, not just the one I'm dating.”

“I've never asked you to treat me differently,” she said sharply.

“I never said you did. And I'm doing my best not to in the field. What that means, though, is you have to listen to me. If I give an order, you need to follow it. If you can't, then us working together isn't going to work. And if that’s what has to happen for us to be together, personally, then I’m willing to do that.”

She shook her head. “I’m not. We work too well together. I just…” She sighed. “I’m not used to being in a relationship, especially one that mixes work with pleasure.”

Her words surprised him, though he couldn't help a lopsided smile curling his lips. She caught it.

“Yes, pleasure,” she said. “With you, personally, it is pleasure. But adding in the work part makes it... well... I didn’t know if I could do that again… I needed to think about if I _wanted_ to do that...” She lowered her gaze, her hand toying with a stray thread on her dress. 

She was nervous, and he had no idea why. 

“Peg, it’s me,” he said, placing his hands over hers. “Talk to me.”

She pulled her hands from his, and he placed his hands in his lap. She needed the distance. Something was really bothering her.

“You have to understand,” she said tentatively. “The last time I mixed my professional and personal lives, it did not turn out well.”

He knew she was talking about Steve Rogers. He was the red, white and blue elephant in their relationship. No, that wasn’t fair. She’d never brought him up until now. He never felt as if she were comparing him to Captain America. Not that she could, he mused silently. It was like comparing… well, it was just what Krzmenski had said: comparing a hero’s shield to a beat-up aluminum crutch.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear about her love life with Rogers, but she needed to say it, so he let her.

“I don’t know what Steve and I would have had outside of the war. We were thrown together in a common goal to rid the world of HYDRA. We never had what you would call a normal interaction, like a dinner date or sitting on a couch and listening to the radio. Honestly, I’m not sure how either one of us would have reacted to that. That uncertainty has haunted me. It still does.

“But it does not in any way dictate who we are, Daniel. This is different, we are very different than Steve and I.” She sighed. “I am not uncertain about you. I never have been. It’s me I’m uncertain about.”

He didn’t say a word, didn’t move, though he tried to keep his expression passive. He’d assumed them working together was the main issue. He couldn’t have been more wrong. 

“This case,” she continued, “something about it triggered something inside me, something that made me second-guess myself being in a relationship. I kept seeing your authority as an affront to me personally. Intellectually, I knew it wasn't, but I'm afraid my intellect has been shaded by my uncertainty about us. No, not us. Me.” She sighed heavily. “Oh, I'm not saying this very well.”

“You got cold feet,” he said. “About us. You were afraid history would repeat itself.”

She nodded. “That's part of it. But mostly it was about me not being able to handle this, us.” She huffed out a laugh. “I don’t know how to be a normal woman in a normal relationship.”

“You, Peggy Carter, are anything but normal,” he said with a wry smile.

She gave him a small smile back. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It was meant to be one. You aren't normal. _We_ aren’t normal. We never will be. I want you, with all of the abnormalities that come with that. I know that what we have is different, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. But what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Are you okay with me being the boss at work? Given your reaction on this case, I'm thinking the answer is ‘no’.”

“That’s the funny part,” she said, a mirthless smile on her lips. “I always have been okay with it. I… As I said, something triggered in my head that I should pull back, personally, and the only way I knew how was to fight you at work. I’m not very good with emotions, never have been.”

He nodded. “I’m glad to hear you are okay with me being your supervisor. Guess I’m the only one who isn’t sure about it.”

Her eyebrow arched but she didn’t respond.

“We’re both struggling here, Peg. I am being over-protective of you, I know it. I'm trying to curb that instinct but it's hard. I don't want you hurt. Hell, I don’t want any of my agents hurt, but especially not you. My biggest fear happened two days ago. I was told you were missing. You have no idea what went through my mind. They were very un-chief-like thoughts. I had to fight myself to keep it together and form a team to find you. That's not good, for either of us. I've had to do some real soul-searching to find out if this was even possible, me being your supervisor.”

“And what did you decide?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

He hesitated, then said, “This is all different and new, for both of us. We have to set some boundaries. I believe we can make this work, but it will take time, a lot of work and some compromises.”

Her lips fought a smile. “I’m not very good at compromises.”

“No, you aren’t, but you’ll learn to be. So will I. We have to, in order for us to do this.”

She nodded. “I didn't think about what my actions would do to you as a chief. I am truly sorry for that.” This time, the smile showed itself. “In case you haven't noticed, I have a tendency to buck authority.”

He smiled back. “I have noticed, for a few years now.” His smile faded. “You’re sure you want this, want us, personally and professionally? If you need more time--”

She lurched forward, her hands framing his face, much like they did in his office all those weeks ago. Her lips connected with his, bruisingly so. Out of instinct, his arm slipped around her waist, pulling her closer. Her tongue slipped between his lips, dueling with his, and he had to fight the urge to take her right there on the couch. This woman would be his downfall and his salvation, and he was okay with both.

After what felt like minutes, they broke the kiss mutually, staring at each other, both out of breath and unsure what to do next. 

She finally broke the silence. “Does that answer your question?”

He couldn’t help but laugh. “I suppose it does, at least for the personal part.”

“It answers it for the professional part, too," she said softly. “I have a hard time listening to my heart. That’s what I needed to do and I know, in my heart, that we belong together. At work and at home. You are right. We can make this work, and I’m more than willing to put in the time and effort.”

He nodded. “So am I. It won’t be all wine and roses, you know.”

“I don’t care for flowers and you know I prefer a good whiskey.”

“What I meant,” he said, shaking his head, “is that it won’t be easy.”

“No, it won’t, but it will be worth it.”

Truer words never have been spoken, he thought as her lips met his in the softest of kisses.

She pulled back and lay her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry to be such a chore.”

“You’re not a chore, Peggy. You’re a challenge. And you know how much I love challenges.” He kissed her temple. “And how much I love you.”

She lifted her head. “You do love me, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.”

“I love you, too, Daniel. Despite what I say or what I do, I love you.”

“I know.”

She settled her head back on his shoulder. “Is this the part where we get to have make-up sex?”

He chuckled. “I guess it is.”

“Only if you want.”

“I want,” he said around a smile. “I’ve heard it’s usually really good.”

She untangled herself from his arms and stood, offering her hand to him. “It will be the best, I promise.”

It was going to be a long night, but not for the reasons he thought earlier.


End file.
